


The Library

by funeralfiona



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funeralfiona/pseuds/funeralfiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undertaker thoughtfully ventures through the Dispatch's Library of Records after hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Library

The Dispatch Record Library remained as unchanged as the first day it was erected. The thick stale air still smelled like a decaying asylum and was just as static. Under the watch of a stoic and unromantic statue of himself he’d slipped passed the drowsy night receptionist as easily as black mist but could not contain a high cackle as the poor girl sensed _something_. She set to inspecting around her desk nervously, peeking around small corners with a cautious hand extended before her. He left her to dis-ease and shut the door behind him with a reverberating clack of the lock. If she suspected anything it would still be another few hours at least before she could contact anyone to gain the permission, locate, fill-out, and process the paperwork she’d need to enter the library after hours.

“It’s dangerous for persons to be so curious after dark.” His cracked mumbling was soaked up to the ceiling. “Unless one likes trouble, that is.”

He had no decent purpose for his visit, but a good manager with the proper amount of fear in him would know better than to ask a veteran god of his intentions. He himself saw no sense in it, but Undertaker had reached an age that required the reverence of all Reapers. Snorting at the thought of such easy worship he stepped into the libraries grand chamber. He was in an oddly nostalgic mood and it was a walk n’ a half before he reached the inner and oldest shelves. The whole of the collection spiraled downward in cleanly designed staircases, branching off to intersecting halls, until the smooth steps began to crack and twist with crooked obscurity. Down here the walls aged from saintly white to ash grey, porous and sparse in decoration, while up above the halls display kingly mementos of Reapers past. His own glasses, originally plucked from his face in utilitarian malice, still sat glinting under hot-light within a glass case he swore was made of Reaper dignity.

But that was not the nostalgia he was looking to indulge tonight.

Stepping off the staircase and on to the gritty marble of the first basement level his pale eyes looked about. Some kind of chaotic rush of organization happened here. For the sake of space, shelves had been pushed into one another to allow for more records. But overcrowding was unavoidable and soon the shelves gave way to uneasy stacks half-hazardly perched at the end of each row. Glancing off to his right a dark arching stone entrance-way breathed damp cold air up from the lowest levels. He honestly considered continuing on for a moment but thought against it. The sight beyond the deceptively deep pitch was not necessary for tonight's casual exploration. For a few steps into the void was a sharply cut and clearly intentional sheer drop of unidentifiable feet deep.  Down there had no shelves or desk, only books, as ancient as the cosmos, stacked higher than heaven and more unexplored then the hills of hell. It challenged all that Grim Reapers became as a society with their fair judgments and orderly decisiveness.

But Reapers had been very much like that once. He could still remember them shuffling among each other and Man, eager to practice inherited duty and instinct. He couldn't really say if reapers had a vein of origin or if they all awoke for the first time together.

He tilted his head into the moan of the cold wind drifting up from the depths.

After hours, he remembered,  Reapers would return to their claustrophobic, almost animal homes, all hoarded with all the things that brought them momentary joy; tools, trinkets, unidentified shiny metals and stones… Reapers had in them a type of accelerated genius and mad curiosity. In the hours between soul-storing they would fiddle and tinker, weld, and lust for something mean until their walls became blueprinted with boxy pictographs and the night growled with the howling of their odd mechanics. Then they would scream, for some overly-stimulated reason, and sleep. It was best not to go there again, as raw as it was.

He moved away from the drafts slick tongue and delicately toed over papers secured with twine. He had ventured relatively deep into the leaning maze when his senses told him to look about. Twisting slowly a stack of records some distance away swayed like an old tree. His perpetual bliss was unaffected. He wasn't really being stalked or followed, just watched. It was his fault, really, he knew he was intruding. It much less about breaking library curfew and more about him stepping into a space that could no longer be wholly considered the property of The Dispatch. The catacombs of the Library basements had become a barely passable landscape in its own right. It was very literately alive.

Deciding against testing the patience of Library wilderness he rested himself upon a solid wall of records. He stood in muted observance as his eyes casually scanned the records spines. Without betraying recognition or exclamation he selected one with its gold letters worn away. As he folded it over to scan the blank cover paper somewhere behind him crackled.

Despite it's obvious weakness the leather cover refused to yield to his expert hands. Like a poltergeist, records became self-conscience over time, a little worn out, un-sure and forgetful of anything that wasn't resistance. He hummed low a tune that was somewhere between dirge and lullaby to soothe the reluctant memories and with a long nail slipped between its thin pages the volume finally submitted itself. The tight chamber was thrown into high flashing contrast as the record unreeled at a violent speed. Time slowed for him as he observed a familar life-time go by.


End file.
